House of Roasted Duck 劉強烤鴨店 - Restaurant by Gao Ji Food.

• Operating Days: Daily
• Operating Time: 11 AM to 11 PM
• Address: 2 Locations - Bugis Village and Sultan Plaza
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House of Roasted duck 劉強烤鴨店 was actually a recommendation from one of the food lovers in the community and so, we decided to try it out today.

House of Roasted duck 劉強烤鴨店 is an umbrella business under Gao Ji Food 高記食品，which making Yong Tau Foo is their forte and their key business. Gao Ji has never disappoint us so far with their food and thus, we were very excited to try out House of Roasted Duck after the highly raved reviews.

We went to the Bugis village branch on a weekday evening. You will not miss out their brightly lited signboard when you walk past.

We were there at about 9pm and there were many seats available. Probably due to the late timing where everyone would have taken their dinner, the shop looked a little empty despite its small dining area. We have walked passed a few times on weekends and there were definitely long queues outside the shop. We were glad that we need not queue before we got our seats.

At House of Roasted Duck, You will get to choose the type of meat you want to go along your staple. As for how it is named, House of roasted duck is famous for their Peking Duck, and Roasted Duck. They have Soy Sauce Chicken and Crispy Roasted Pork and as well! They have named the famous 4 meat items as “Heavenly King” and it is highly recommended by the shop for their customers to try. You may choose to create your own combo with rice or noodles, or congee based on your own liking. 

It was a rainy evening and we decided to order a bowl of shrimp wanton soup (净鲜虾云吞) together with our mains (which we will be covering shortly). Priced at $7.80, the bowl of soup came with 6 shrimp wantons.

Each wanton is filled fully with prawns and minced pork that has been lightly seasoned, wrapped under the thin and clear wanton skin. The slight cloudy wanton soup was just nice to our tastebud, but it would be better if it can be served hot (instead of lukewarm).

There were not 1, but 2 prawns in each wanton dumpling!

Being a Char Siew fan, we can’t resist the temptation to order Char Siew rice, especially in an authentic Hong Kong restaurant. 

The char Siew has a good combination of 80% lean meat with 20% fats, which was something to our liking. The sauce on rice was also light yet flavourful enough to not overpower the fragrance of white rice.  The white rice used in the stall was also of a higher quality, solid yet soft with each grain not sticking to one another. 

Next came was the combination of Crispy Roasted Duck with soy sauce chicken on white rice. Each piece of the roasted duck is sliced in a way that it has more meat with tiny bone, which makes it easier to eat. The skin was roasted to a slight crisp and was extremely flavourful! Unlike many of the stalls in the market, the texture of the roasted duck meat here does not have a rough texture, and to be honest, it was beyond our expectation and the roasted duck skin totally won our hearts down. The tender soy sauce chicken was good too, easily making it one of the favourites for dinner. The chicken was also packed with flavours and the meat was also soft and juicy, giving every bite a pleasure to our mouth.

We heard that the roasted duck here was sold out on a daily basis, even before their closing hours. Any roasted duck lover should definitely give this restaurant a try. We will definitely return soon to try out their Peking duck!

Ah Balling Peanut Soup 75花生湯圓 - Lantern Festival 元宵节 dessert all year round.

Operating Days: Daily

Operating Time: 11 AM to 8.30PM (Weekdays)

Operating Time: 10 AM to 8.30PM (Weekends)

Address: Golden Mile Food Centre, 505 Beach Road, #01-75, S 199583

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If you are a fan of glutinous rice balls and peanut soup, you would have probably heard of Ah Balling Peanut Soup 75花生汤圆. This is one of the famous Ah Balling stalls with more than half a century of history in Singapore. So why the name Ah Balling? In the past, people used to make rice ball as big as the size of the duck eggs, with the shape resembling duck eggs as well. The Teochew called the duck eggs as "Ah Ball Leng 鸭母卵", and that’s how the term “Ah Balling” came about.

Starting price for 4 Glutinous Rice Balls is priced at $2. The Ah Balling comes with various filling, such as peanut, black sesame seeds, green tea, yam paste and red bean. They have also different flavours of soup to go with the rice balls — peanut soup, longan, ginger and almond milk.

In my opinion, peanut filling is the best, especially if you choose to have it match with their famous peanut soup. You can still see the peanuts in their original form, and they have been boiled to the right point of softness.

The peanuts are cooked for so long till they are soft and all the flavour in it were all in the soup!

Each rice ball is of similar sizes and they are extremely chewy. Be careful when you are eating as the filling in it would ooze out if you didn’t chew properly. The peanut filling inside also provides a crunchy bite, giving it a good contrast to the soft rice balls.

Ah Balling 75 花生汤圆 serves traditional glutinous rice ball dessert that is well-liked by many Singaporeans today. It is no longer a dessert most Chinese eat during major festivities which in the past, it symbolizes reunion (团圆/圆满). Do give them a visit if you are nearby!
P.S. If you happen to eat at the stall on Lantern Festival 元宵節, don’t be surprised to find pink rice ball in your soup!

Leong Kee (Klang) Bak Kut Teh 梁記(巴生)肉骨茶 - Claypot herbal soup in Geylang

• Operating Hours: 11 AM - 1 AM
• Operating Days: Closed on Wednesdays
• Address: 251 Geylang Lor 11, S 389309
• Delivery Hotline: 93801718

Leong Kee 梁記 is one of the very few Bak Kut Teh places in Singapore that serve Klang style Bak Kut Teh in Singapore.

Unlike any other Bak Kut Teh stalls, this is the place to come whenever you feel like having something less spicy or less peppery Bak Kut Teh.

Not a lot of choices for side dishes, they only have the egg, salted vegetable, stewed peanuts, tau pok and you tiao. The prices are quite cheap, most of the side dishes cost less than one dollar. We ordered a bowl of Bak Kut Teh, fried prawn paste chicken wing with 2 bowls of rice, it cost a total of $14.

After you have ordered and paid, you can find seats either outdoor or indoor seats just next door.

All the orders came in under 5 minutes of waiting.

The crispy batter gave that crunchy bite into the fried chicken wing, and the fermented prawn paste flavour was a bit bland to me. I had better ones but at a dollar a piece, this was really good value considering the quality! 

The Bak Kut Teh was served on a steaming hot claypot. There is a large portion of beancurd skin inside the soup along with a generous portion of pork ribs. 

The soup has the herbally taste, but I felt that the broth was a bit thin and light, not as strong as what I had in Malaysia. 

The pork ribs in the claypot portions are fairly satisfying. They were also quite generous with the meat and they are tender and soft that you can tear it off the bones easily.

Of course, there are better Klang Bak Kut Teh in Malaysia, but this is one of the few Klang style Bak Kut Teh in Singapore, it was affordable and filling. If you are craving Malaysian style Hawker food without crossing the custom, this is one of the places to visit.

Restoran Yong Xin 永新鲍鱼粿条 - Refreshing Abalone Noodle in Skudai

• Operating Hours: 7.30 AM - 10 PM
• Operating Days: Daily
• Address: 143 Jalan Pahlawan 1, Taman Ungku Tun Aminah, 81300, Johor Bahru

Abalone Noodles is one of the unique dishes you can find in Malaysia. If you enjoy light, clear soup with fresh ingredients, Johor Bahru has many shops selling kway teow soup to satisfy you. Yong Xin 永新鲍鱼粿条 is a good option for you when you have that craving for some Kway Tiao with Seafood soup. Located in Skudai area,  They are quite popular amongst the locals for the Abalone Kway Teow Soup 鲍鱼粿条汤 they served.

Other than selling abalone seafood soup, they do sell canned abalone in their shop too!

For those who can't read Chinese, the history was the owner who formerly in the Mechanical industry for years in Singapore, stepped into the food industry in the year 2003. At the beginning, the owner opened his very first eating house serving Malaysian cuisine Bak Kut Teh and Kuey Teow Soup for a year.

The owner at then realised the market opportunity and studied deeply on the demand by locals, decided to stop his Bak Kut Teh career to venture into making abalone noodles, but he was criticised by customers in the beginning. So he spends 12 hours a day to cook and study the recipe, and finally, his abalone Kwey Tiao soup was accepted by the locals in just a few months since he started his business until today. 

This restaurant has attracted many visitors from the other states and even from other countries. Look at the number of celebrities that came to visit them. A very informational menu.

There are different combinations of the ingredients, so you can even choose without any of the pork organs like livers and stomach if you don't like them.

We ordered Yong Xin's signature Large and Medium Abalone Kway Teow each.

So while waiting for the dish to arrive, you can help yourselves to fried pork lard. It was crispy and crunchy.

The set we ordered came with our choice of Kway Tiao (they have noodles or bee hoon as well) and a bowl of soup with standard items - sliced canned abalone, prawn, oysters, sliced and minced pork, pig liver and stomach.

The difference between 12 RM large portion and 10 RM medium portion is that the large portion has additional ingredients plus fish maw and Pacific Clams which is very worth to top up 2RM for them.

Every ingredient was fresh, which I feel, they are the key to the good seafood soup. 

The soup is the main factor for this delicious bowl of Teochew dish. At Yong Xin, the pork bone based soup is light, clear and sweet. Part of the sweetness came from the ingredients in the soup which were all nice textured with natural sweetness.

There were a few of these small fresh oysters in the soup. Though tiny, these oyster are fat and juicy.

Kway Teow Kia, the slimy translucent kway tiao that was tossed with sweet black sauce. It was quite chewy and yet does not stick to your teeth. Though it was not Q enough, it was still very pleasant to eat it together with the soup, indeed a wonderful match!

Do check out this Kway Teow shop if you happened to be in Skudai area. Definitely a shop worth visiting! 

Qi Le Boneless Chicken Rice 祺乐起骨鸡饭 - Chicken rice and Soup lover must have!

• Operating Hours: 24/7
• Address: S11 Foodcourt, 51 Ang Mo Kio Ave 3, S569922
• Total Cost: $7 for 2 person

Recommended by a few of my friends staying at Ang Mo Kio, we decided to try this stall since we were at this area. Located at the S-11 opposite AMK Hub and besides McDonald's, it is a place you won't miss even if you don't stay around this area.

We were quite surprised to see the queue as it was already 8:30 pm when we reach. 

As mentioned by my friends, this stall is probably the only chicken rice stall that serves a big bowl of soup with every plate of chicken rice purchased; and the type of soup you will get is actually very similar to those boiled soup 炖汤 stall you see at various food centre! 

We paid only $7 for the above. Yes! It's only $7 for two plates of chicken, two bowls of rice and two BIG bowls of chicken feet with peanut soup!

The roasted chicken breast is tender and soft, and personally, it really suits my taste even though I don't really take the chicken breast.

From what I see, most of the patrons bought the steam boiled chicken instead of the roasted ones. For those who fancy chicken with a thick layer of fats underneath the chicken skin, you will definitely like this. Overall a decent dish with the skin that is tender and springy!

Not sure about other customers but for us, this is the main reason why we were here. Very generous with a number of peanuts given, this bowl of soup also includes 2-3 chicken feet and some boiled chicken (which we believe they use them to boil the soup) that you can also eat it on its own. The soup is light and not oily, and the hours of boiling using chicken bone and peanut make the soup flavourful just by its own, without much seasoning / MSG needed.

I also like how they replace the boring cucumber with bean sprouts, especially after the bean sprouts was evenly mixed with the soy sauce and sesame oil. 

Over all, 祺乐起骨鸡饭 is a stall often patronized by people who stay within the area that wanted a decent, comfort meal. With their generous portion of rice, chicken, and soup given, it is definitely one of the key factors for their continuous good business despite there are many good food nearby.